A Beautiful Day

Today, as was yesterday and several days this week, a beautiful day. The sunshine was bright, the temperature pleasant (for December in South Dakota, that is) and the wind nearly non-existent. I believe that each day saw me completing my “steps” as counted by my watch. A little walk in the morning and evening sort of “bookends” my day, or rather the part of day that is light. After three weeks off I returned for chemotherapy. This is not something that most people look forward to. God has blessed me greatly in that the pre-medication for nausea works very well and I don’t have any awful side effects. The staff at the Prairie Center is so kind and helpful and welcoming, I might add. The week begins with a visit to the lab for a blood draw. Those results are sent electronically to the doctor with whom I meet about an hour later. The results determine whether I can go ahead with the treatments, I assume. For a while it was sodium that was the concern. It kept jumping up and down from high to low. That hasn’t been the case lately. When the doctor looks at the results and says “There’s nothing here to talk about,” that I believe is a good sign! 
After five infusions the week ends with a shot to improve my white cell count which is affected by the chemo. Then I’m finished. The staff all wish me a “good by” as I leave. By this time everyone knows my name. Now, on Christmas Eve I will have a CT scan and an MRI and we will see what is really happening on the inside. All has gone well so far so I have no fears. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have now become obvious in the hospital. The Prairie Center used to be open weekdays from 7 to 5, Monday through Friday. If patients needed infusions outside of those hours they went to the main hospital for such. Now the hospital is too crowded so the staff at the cancer center is now working evenings and weekends. The latest reports on the pandemic here show that 10% of the population has been infected, and probably more than that who haven’t been tested. Also the number we have sent out of the state through the motorcycle rally and other super-spreader events is an unknown but probably huge. I wonder if our do-nothing governor is proud of the number. The major hospital system from which the CEO took “early retirement” a short time ago was due to merge with another giant system from Utah. Today it was announced that the merger was cancelled. Seems there is a bit of turmoil. It had been planned that the administration would move to Utah. That would have left a number of buildings here vacant, some of them recently constructed. I continue to enjoy re-reading parts of Gertrud Mueller Nelson’s book that I mentioned last week. Tomorrow is St. Nicholas Day and she relates the many activities that her family did to celebrate that day. It was fun to note that as her children went on to college they continued to celebrate as many of the customs as they could with their new communities. She writes of her daughter baking cookies and hanging one on the bedroom doors of her college dormitory as a little surprise. I recall my mother saying to me, “I don’t understand why you could choose two such low paying occupations!” She was referring to a musician and a priest. There are musicians and priests who do very well, but generally not in South Dakota. If she were present now she would probably say, “I don’t understand why you could choose two occupations from which you will never retire!” One of the local churches needed an organist for Christmas and the week following. I’d better get busy practicing, again. Sophia continues to improve her word processing skills!

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. Your support is very precious to me.